Classic TV

Knight Rider

Now here we have a classic. Come on, own up now. Who when they were younger wanted their dad to put a flashing KITT-style light on the front of the family car? Yes, I’m looking at YOU. Be a man (I’m gonna have to exclude the girlies here, because I don’t think they were as sad as us guys) and own up!

Anyway, let’s start at the beginning. Once upon a time, there was this cop called Michael Long. He ended up getting his face blown away by this bird that your mother has always warned you about, called Tanya.

He’s rescued by Wilton Knight and given a bit of a face lift (ie, they scraped it back off the floor, decided that perhaps it might be a bit dirty, and decided to go out and buy another one). So, here’s Michael with a new face, and thrown in for good measure he gets a new name… Michael Knight.

Pretty good deal if you ask me, but since this is the Knight Foundation and not PC World (what PC World would be doing dealing in face lifts is a bit of a mystery, but never mind), he gets an even more cracking bargain – A new car.

But this is no ordinary car, oh no. Apart from all the option extras you could ask for, such as the only flashy side-to-side light in existance that made a noise, and a digital speedo that made clicky sounds (thanks to Crazy Eddie for reminding me about those), it also had a bad-attitude personality upgrade. To be honest though, I think this option is included as standard in all new cars these days anyway. Well, mine has it. It must have, because my car has a serious attitude problem. If it doesn’t want to go anywhere, it’ll let you know!

Anyway, I’m straying from the point now (shock! Horror! Never been known to do that before, have I?). This car talks, it drives itself, it argues with anyone, and quite frankly I’m shocked that I haven’t been out on a date with it. It’s got all the gadgets you’d possibly want and it farts in the general direction of heavy gun-fire. Sweet!

So, here we have two people (well, one person, and a car that talks). Their mission is to spank the botties of those who operate above the law. In other words, we have a guy that got his face blown off by a woman and has a habit of speaking into his watch, and a car that starts on cold mornings. Between them they stop all these bad guys that the cops can’t.

If we take the fact that Michael was pretty much an easy target (considering he drives around most of the time in a bullet-proof car with the window wound down), and quite frankly a face-lift hasn’t made him any better, who do you think is doing all the work. KITT (that’s the car in case you’ve been stuck down a hole for the last 20 years), that’s who.

Michael should be given no credit what-so-ever. He’s basically just your typical manager type. Gets someone else to do all the work, and then takes the credit.

Knight Rider though was, and still is, just pure class. Like any other program though, there’s bound to be the people who hated it. I for one, loved it and I guess there’s quite a few people who’d agree with me as well.

The only thing is, which once was better – Knight Rider or Street Hawk?